1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for estimating the link quality of a channel, and more particularly to a method and an apparatus to utilize a fading value to modify an estimated link quality thereby deriving a quality measure being close to the actual quality of said channel.
2. Description of Related Art
In a wireless communication system, the link quality of a channel is an essential reference parameter whether for the transmission party or the reception party. For example, if the link quality between an access point and plural nodes covered by said access point is able to be precisely measured, the MAC layer (media access control layer) of said access point can properly switch the comminuting channel among the plural nodes or decrease/increase the signal transmission rate.
Basically, link quality is determined upon the measured signal-to-noise ration (SNR). Although the parameter is useful in evaluating the link quality of a communication channel, it has been found that the precise link quality is hard to be represented merely by an SNR. Some additional factors, such as the fading factor resulted from the multipath, may possibly affect the accuracy of the measured quality.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a new method and an apparatus for estimating a link quality of a communication channel.